Red Mosquito

stip wrote:Bleach is a novelty record.

Nope.

School, Blew, About a Girl, Swap Meet? Come on stip.

Yeah, this stip hole is just getting deeper and deeper by the post.

stip wrote:Matt Reeder was reluctant to count Jeff Buckley because he only had two albums. I'm assuming he means two significant albums.

That strikes me as quite a bizarre assumption.

Jeff Buckley released two albums of original material, Nirvana released four: to everyone else, I would presume these are just statements of objective fact.

stip wrote:Bleach is a novelty record.

Again, thoroughly bizarre.

zeb wrote:Yeah, this stip hole is just getting deeper and deeper by the post.

Every now and then stip decides he's gonna bait OB

You could actually see this coming from the start of the thread. Reeder keeps posting passionately and stip kept saying, 'yeah, this is sort of ok, I guess.'

What the hell, stip?

DeLima wrote:

zeb wrote:Yeah, this stip hole is just getting deeper and deeper by the post.

Every now and then stip decides he's gonna bait OB

YES BUT TO WHAT END

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

Birds in Hell wrote:

stip wrote:Matt Reeder was reluctant to count Jeff Buckley because he only had two albums. I'm assuming he means two significant albums.

That strikes me as quite a bizarre assumption.

Jeff Buckley released two albums of original material, Nirvana released four: to everyone else, I would presume these are just statements of objective fact.

stip wrote:Bleach is a novelty record.

Again, thoroughly bizarre.

In a conversation about someone being THE BEST I'd think that the actual quality of writing matters. MR basically took Cornell out of the running by saying that some of his earlier records shouldn't count because they're not of sufficient quality, and that he therefore didn't have enough A material to really count. My initial comment was basically directed at him, about the criteria he set up for his own internal thought process, saying that he probably should think about eliminating Cobain based on his output.



If the rest of you think that Bleach is a brilliant piece of writing then there's nothing I can do for you. Standards aren't for everyone.

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

welp, then I'd just go ahead and definitely take him out of the running.

Anyerusym is a pretty good song, though.

I like a few songs on Bleach, mind you. But absolutely nothing on Bleach makes me think that I'm listening to one of the greatest songwriters of any decade.

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

I would say that some of the older tracks that made it onto In Utero (Dumb, All Apologies) were definitely good enough to stand with the upper tier of the rest of the catalogue. I think the delay in those tracks being released had more to do with them not fitting on previous albums than perceived issues with their quality.

But the essence of your point stands.

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

also, regardless of where the songs came from, In Utero is easily Cobain's most interesting work as a writer (not that nevermind isn't impressive)

I guess on whatever planet In Utero, rather than Nevermind, is Nirvana's most famous album Bleach can be a masterpiece. But it's not Earth

stip wrote:

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

also, regardless of where the songs came from, In Utero is easily Cobain's most interesting work as a writer (not that nevermind isn't impressive)

I guess on whatever planet In Utero,r ather than Nevermind, is Nirvana's most famous album Bleach can be a masterpiece. But it's not Earth

I wouldn't say that Bleach is a masterpiece. But there are some songs on there that I mentioned above that are absolutely masterful examples of punk songwriting with hooks. You add a couple tracks like Sliver, Dive, and Aneurysm, and we're approaching masterpiece.

Anyway, although the truth is in the middle, it's crazier to call it a novelty album than it is to call it a masterpiece.

For years Nirvana was one of my absolute favorite bands. I always enjoyed listening to Bleach. I never would have given it the time of day if not for the fact that it was a chance to see what Nirvana was going to become. That's what I mean by novelty. It's a historical document.

You can take the 4 screaming trees records before Uncle Anesthesia, put the best songs together, and have a decent EP. Add Uncle Anesthesia and you have a good album. But when I'm going to talk about Mark Lanegan as one of the great talents of the last twenty plus years, those albums are footnotes, of interest because of what would happen, not because of what they are.

DeLima wrote:

stip wrote:

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

also, regardless of where the songs came from, In Utero is easily Cobain's most interesting work as a writer (not that nevermind isn't impressive)

I guess on whatever planet In Utero,r ather than Nevermind, is Nirvana's most famous album Bleach can be a masterpiece. But it's not Earth

I wouldn't say that Bleach is a masterpiece. But there are some songs on there that I mentioned above that are absolutely masterful examples of punk songwriting with hooks. You add a couple tracks like Sliver, Dive, and Aneurysm, and we're approaching masterpiece.

Anyway, although the truth is in the middle, it's crazier to call it a novelty album than it is to call it a masterpiece.

I think we probably need to be a little bit more judicious with our use of the phrase masterpiece.

If Lament doesn't agree with me I'm going to be sad.

stip wrote:

DeLima wrote:

stip wrote:

Wendy Carlos's Twin wrote:

stip wrote:Kurt Cobain's strength as a song writer comes down to In Utero and Nevermind. One plus one is two.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. "In Utero" represented the DUMBING DOWN of Cobain as a songwriter. Bereft of ideas, more than half of the album consists of old outtakes that weren't good enough for previous albums. Just because it's his most famous album doesn't mean it's his most artistically successful. The real Cobain is the Cobain you hear on the second half of Incesticide.

also, regardless of where the songs came from, In Utero is easily Cobain's most interesting work as a writer (not that nevermind isn't impressive)

I guess on whatever planet In Utero,r ather than Nevermind, is Nirvana's most famous album Bleach can be a masterpiece. But it's not Earth

I wouldn't say that Bleach is a masterpiece. But there are some songs on there that I mentioned above that are absolutely masterful examples of punk songwriting with hooks. You add a couple tracks like Sliver, Dive, and Aneurysm, and we're approaching masterpiece.

Anyway, although the truth is in the middle, it's crazier to call it a novelty album than it is to call it a masterpiece.

I think we probably need to be a little bit more judicious with our use of the phrase masterpiece.

We definitely need to be a little more judicious with our use of the phrase 'novelty album'

I clarified what I meant by that. I mean, it's not like I'm comparing Bleach to Bad Radio

stip wrote:For years Nirvana was one of my absolute favorite bands. I always enjoyed listening to Bleach. I never would have given it the time of day if not for the fact that it was a chance to see what Nirvana was going to become. That's what I mean by novelty. It's a historical document.

You can take the 4 screaming trees records before Uncle Anesthesia, put the best songs together, and have a decent EP. Add Uncle Anesthesia and you have a good album. But when I'm going to talk about Mark Lanegan as one of the great talents of the last twenty plus years, those albums are footnotes, of interest because of what would happen, not because of what they are.

I can buy the argument when it comes to the Trees more, although their first few albums shouldn't by any means be written off.

But Bleach? Stands on its own. If Nirvana had never made another record, obviously like 1/1,000,000 as many people would have heard it, but the quality is there.